Poverty

Just over a quarter of the world population, or 1.4 billion people, lived in extreme poverty in 2005, according to the World Bank. That compares with 42% in 1990, when the bank first published its global poverty estimates. Rapid economic growth has led to a dramatic decline in poverty in China, where the share of people below the threshold of $1.25 a day fell from 60.2% to 15.9% between 1990 and 2005. But the poverty rate fell much more slowly in India, to 41.6% in 2005 from 51.3% in 1990. South Asia has the most very poor people of any region in the world. But the fraction of the population that lives in extreme poverty is highest, at 50.9%, in sub-Saharan Africa, though it has fallen there from 57.6% in 1990.